ideas for english teaching & learning

In case any of you are still in the dark over the latest development in the seemingly neverending PBS fiasco, it was recently announced that the Dokumen Standard Prestasi will no longer be in use starting from April 2014. Taking its place is the Panduan Perkembangan Pembelajaran Murid. Students’ progress is gauged based on the four language skills: Listening & Speaking, Reading and Writing. Each skill comes in 6 “Band”s of varying difficulty. I have included the PPPM for Form 1, 2 and 3 below. You can download them and take a look yourself.

Also of importance is the fact that students are no longer required to complete worksheets or “evidences” as proof of their progress. Subsequently, teachers are no longer required to key-in students’ progress onto the online database. What IS required is still unknown at the moment although the common suggestion is for teachers to keep an informal record of students’ progress based on the PPPM. Eventually, the ministry plans to release a document for us to formally report individual student’s achievement.

Finally, we must also keep in mind that Form 3 students are now required to sit for the Peperiksaan Tingkatan 3 or PT3. I have briefly outlined the format for the English paper previously. At the moment, the official word is that the ministry will provide schools with a “question bank” of sorts (in the form of a CD). The CD will have low, moderate and high level questions. Individual schools will then proceed to compile their own version of the exam based on a pre-determined guideline. For example, 5 low-level questions,3 moderate-level questions and 2 high-level questions.

However, this is all subjected to change. We do not know what will happen until it actually happens. I will update again if there are any new developments. Until then, happy teaching!

Here are some “character maps” that my kids made for “The Curse”. This activity is best done shortly after they read the novel as a refresher of the main characters and their relations as well as an excuse to have some fun. 🙂 I chose the characters based on who I think would be able to fit into a single “map” to make the task less confusing for the weaker students.

I provided them with the photos and the list of characters to include. Since internet is almost non-existent in my school, I had to prepare the photos in advance. But if you teach in an urban school where you have access to a computer lab, you can even get your students to look up and print out the photos themselves. That way they can choose whichever celebrity they like, which will no doubt motivate them even more.

*At the moment, the writing assessment will take place sometime in October and the listening/speaking components sometime in August. However, this is only a tentative schedule.

*Summary and literature will NOT be tested although they should still be taught for the purpose of school-level assessments.

Author’s note: To be honest, no one really knows what is going on or what is going to happen later. Our best bet right now would be to teach according to the previous PMR format and this new test, just to be on the safe side. What we can be sure of is that there will definitely be some form of assessment for the Form 3 students before the year is out so we shouldn’t let the students off too easily.

Well, I believe none of us saw that one coming. I was extremely disappointed when I heard the news because I know there is not much chance of my kids doing well for this one. While the complicated format is an issue on its own, the more pressing matter I believe is the fact that even the best of us can have problems writing a proper formal letter using the proper language.

Nevertheless, I am glad that a couple of weeks prior to the exam, I did give out some samples of formal letters. Although I only went through them briefly, hopefully some of it stuck with my kids and helped them during the exam.

In any case, here are the samples that I gave out to my students. (It is a little late but it can serve as reference for next year? HAHA)

In my opinion, formal letters at this level are limited to only a few typical scenario such as a letter to request for permission, a letter to invite someone to an event or a letter of complaint. Each of these letters has a different purpose and it is reflected in the title of the letter (highlighted in red). The purpose is then reiterated in the first paragraph (highlighted in yellow) but in a complete sentence and sometimes with more details [Sample 2].

As can be seen from the samples, different purposes are expressed in different ways so it is important for your students to be able to produce these sentences. With average students, your best bet would be for them to memorise the sentences and alter them according to the question. Finally, formal letters should end appropriately (highlighted in green) according to the purpose of the letter.

Here is a sample essay I prepared for my students and thought that I would share it here as well since I received a comment a few posts back asking for one.

This sample essay is based on the mid-year examination that recently took place in my school. I have included the question in the word document as well for easy reference.

Also, I have colour-coded the question and the essay to demonstrate how each point should be accompanied by a short elaboration. Essentially, as long as a point (taken from the question) is written in a complete sentence, it should be granted one mark for content. But to be on the safe side, I always encourage my students to elaborate on each of the point. This is both to secure the content mark as well as to gain additional language marks.

In the sample essay, phrases highlighted in RED are the points given, phrases highlighted in YELLOW are the elaboration for each respective point and phrases highlighted in GREEN are the required format. If you read the question carefully, you will realise that the required format is actually mentioned in the question. Make sure your students are aware of this.

You will also notice several phrases highlighted in BLUE. At times, not all of the points are readily given; students have to provide points of their own. A lot of students tend to miss out on these points because they did not read the question properly. One way to avoid losing content marks is to teach your students to count the number of points given. In most cases, the total amount of marks allocated for content is 12. If there are only 9 or 10 points given in the question, ask your students to reread the question to see if there are any additional points that they must give. As can be seen from this particular example, only 10 points were given and students were told to state the benefits of the event. In other words, they have to provide 2 “benefits” on their own in the essay.

One final reminder, if you find that this essay is extremely “structured”, that is because this essay is written to show students how to maximise their chances to gain marks. I would suggest using this sample with intermediate students who can write relatively well on their own but might need abit of help with the structure of their essay. With highly proficient students, there is no need to emphasis on such a strict structure as the natural flow of their writing will most probably outweigh any potential merit that they might gain from adopting this approach.

How is everyone coping on the PBS front? This is a quick how-to for the online PBS database including how to register your students, key in their results and view their reports.

1. This is the main page of the website. Click on “Guru” in the blue section.

2. Your log in ID is your IC number and your password should have been given to you by your PBS coordinator. Click on “Masuk”.

3. Once you have logged in, the system will display your school, name and IC. Here, you need to fill in your phone number. I have been told that this is compulsory or you won’t be able to move on. You also need to change your password.

4. Next, the system will display your school details, together with your log-in ID and your new password. At this point, you can proceed onto the actual functions. Click on “Murid” from the selection on the left and “Daftar Mata Pelajaran” will drop down.

5. Select the class and subject you wish to work on. The classes/subjects that you are in charged of would have been registered by your PBS Coordinator (hence the selection in the drop down should be a limited version rather than all the subjects/classes available in your school). We are actually here to register the students. You will see why in the next step.

6. As you can see, once you have selected a class and a subject, all of the students in that class will be listed. All of the students are also pre-selected or “tick”-ed, as can be seen on the right side of the table. If all of the students in the class is taking the subject, then you can let it be. If certain students are not taking the subject, for example, you teach Pendidikan Moral in a class that has Muslim students, you need to un-“tick” the students that are not involved. This is what “Daftar Mata Pelajaran” is meant to do.

7. Once you are sure that all of the students selected are in fact, taking this particular subject, click on “Daftar” at the bottom of the table. Please be careful and make sure you have got everyone you need and left out those you don’t because I have been told that unlike SAPS, you cannot change the students once you have registered them. Worst case scenario: a student is NOT taking Subject A but was accidentally registered for it, Subject A will show up on that student’s final report with NO results included.

8. As you can see, once the students have been registered, the “tick”s are no longer clickable. To enter their results, click on “Kemasukan Prestasi” on the left and two options will drop down: “Mengikut Murid” and “Mengikut Evidens”. I strongly suggest you choose “Mengikut Evidens” because it is slightly less confusing. As such, I won’t be showing you how to key in data “Mengikut Murid” but feel free to check it out for yourself.

9. Here we have a very important function. Here, you will select the class/subject and which band/descriptor/evidence you would like to key in results for. At the same time, you can select WHEN this piece of evidence was first completed. This is important because you might want to key in data only once every few weeks/months or you could be running behind schedule with the evidences if your school is a bit slow on the upstart at the beginning of the year. Either way, this is very useful but again, non-reversible so be careful.

10. Here, all of the students that you have previously registered for this subject will appear. For those who have completed this particular piece of evidence that you are keying in data for, simply click on the little boxes on the right side of the table to “select” them, so to speak.

11. Once you have selected all the students who have completed this evidence successfully, click on “Simpan”.

12. Again, once the data has been saved, they cannot be altered, as can be seen from the “tick”s that are no longer clickable. To view what you have just keyed in (and to give you a better idea of how important it is to select the month), click on “Laporan” on the left and from the drop down menu, select “Laporan Prestasi Murid”.

13. Select the class/subject you wish to view.

14. Again, all of the students that you have previously registered for this subject will be listed. To view individual reports, click on the icons on the right side of the table.

15. This is what an individual report looks like. As you can see, a student’s progress in a subject is recorded on a monthly basis. This is why it is VERY IMPORTANT to select the month carefully before you key in the results. You do not want to end up with several months with no evidences being achieved nor do you want to have all of the evidences being achieved in the same month. Regardless of when you administered the evidences (or when the students completed them), when you key in the data, you should space it out accordingly so that all of the months have at least one or two evidences each.

And there you have it! A quick review of how to navigate this particular database for those of you who are new to the system.

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Welcome!

Hello. I am a secondary-level English teacher from Sabah, Malaysia. This is where I share any thoughts or ideas I have on teaching and learning the English language. I try to update at least once a week. If you have any questions or comments, feel free to drop me a few words at ideasforenglish2012@gmail.com Thanks for dropping by and have a good day!